Many research studies reveal breakdowns in the diagnostic process that cause a staggering toll of harm to patients. Here is one woman's story.
Miss Diagnosis
by Beth McKim
It is with extreme trepidation that I begin to write this. The details are painful to remember, and I am highly superstitious. It’s almost as if re-telling the events could reverse the previous results.
My saga began when I was 22 years old, working my first job as a social worker for the county welfare department…
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Miss McKim's chronicle of faulty diagnoses reminds me of a poem Gilda Radner published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1989.
Doctors are whippersnappers in ironed white coats
Who spy up your rectums and look down your throats
And press you and poke you with sterilized tools
And stab at solutions that pacify fools.
I used to revere them and do what they said
Till I learned what they learned on was already dead.
Author Bio: Beth McKim is a writer and actress. She lives in Houston, a city that has undergone severe challenges in recent months , but remained strong and victorious. Beth is a standardized patient who works to help medical students develop empathetic interpersonal skills. Her poetry, essays, and short stories appear regularly in niche publications.